How to Succeed in the Book Business the Trump Way

On August 2, Donald Trump sent out a curious fundraising email offering a signed copy of his bestselling business memoir The Art of the Deal for an eye-opening price of $184, more than ten times the list price of the paperback edition. Even odder, in the email, Trump claimed The Art of the Deal was "now out of print", making Trump's offer a "limited edition issue" only available through his presidential campaign. Shockingly—shockingly—this statement was totally false. The Art of the Deal has been regularly in print since its 1987 publication, and had most recently been reissued by Random House in October 2015 (ten months before the fundraising email) to take advantage of interest drummed up by Trump's surging candidacy. In fact, in the week preceding Trump's email, the paperback edition of The Art of the Deal sold over 2,000 copies, landing him in the ninth spot on the Bookscan business bestseller list. Trump's marketing wizardry made an out of print and unavailable book hit a national bestseller list.

His book clout is all the more impressive when you consider that he neither writes his own books nor does he likely read the ones by others that he helps turn into bestsellers with his tweets. "Trump has no interest in reading," says Timothy L. O'Brien, author of the book TrumpNation, in which he interviewed Trump extensively (and was later sued by Trump—unsuccessfully—for $5 billion for underestimating Trump's wealth). "I don't think he reads comic books. He's not a reader. His daily digest is a list of headlines that assistants in his office cull from Google. He's given a morning news digest that's filtered around mentions of him." But since when has Trump needed practical knowledge of an industry before getting into it? One of his greatest strengths is his unabashed, unashamed, total pimpage, and he's brought it to the publishing industry in full force.

Though Trump himself might not own a bookshelf, he has "written" enough to fill one, lending his name to nearly twenty books since The Art of the Deal was published, including How to Get Rich, The Way to the Top, and The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received. Many have been bestsellers, and as Trump's presidential candidacy gained steam, it rejuvenated quite a few, selling tens of thousands of copies of books published years, if not decades ago as his supporters raided bookshelves and stocked their e-readers with past Trump wisdom. And Trump has proven himself an extremely valuable marketing asset when it comes to other peoples' books. This past June, he heavily promoted Crisis of Character, a Clinton-bashing tome by former Secret Service officer Gary J. Byrne, pushing it on Twitter to his 10 million-plus followers and talking it up severaltimes on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. Crisis of Character debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list and has moved over 230,000 copies on Bookscan. It continues to sell over 2,000 copies a week in hardcover. Throughout May and June 2016, Trump consistently hawked Peter Schweizer's book Clinton Cash, and the Trump official campaign released an extensive 35-page report centered on the book. Bolstered by this report and constant fawning on Breitbart.com, Schweizer's book sold well over 100,000 copies, and was even adapted into a graphic novel (!!!).

Trump's bookselling prowess even extends beyond the grave.

Last year, conservative grenadier Ann Coulter published a book called Adios America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole. On May 25, 2015, the week before the book's release, Trump tweeted, "‪.@AnnCoulter's new book-- "Adios, America! The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole"-- is a great read. Good job!" Adios America has sold more than 92,000 copies on Bookscan alone, a 400 percent increase from Coulter's previous book, Never Trust a Liberal Over 3, which moved less than 23,000 copies. Sadly, sales of Coulter's recent love letter to Trump's draconian immigration policy, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!,stalled around the 30,000 copy mark this year, in large part due to its release coinciding with the week that Trump experimented with a softer stance on the issue, leading to a very public spat with Coulter.

Trump's bookselling prowess even extends beyond the grave. The Conservative Case for Trump by longtime conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly was published on September 2, 2016, literally the day after she died at age 92. Trump, who spoke at Schlafly's funeral, tweeted on the book's publication day: "As a tribute to the late, great Phyllis Schlafly, I hope everybody can go out and get her latest book, THE CONSERVATIVE CASE FOR TRUMP." Schlafly's book has sold nearly 500 percent more copies than her previous tome, Who Killed the American Family?

Could Trump harness his pitchman abilities and siphon off a piece of that revenue for himself by launching his own book publishing houyse?

Trump may not read, but he does keep track of money, especially money that is not coming to him. In June,Vanity Fair's Sarah Ellison reported, "[Trump] has become irked by his ability to create revenue for other media organizations without being able to take a cut himself." As the prospects of a Donald Trump presidency have faded, rumors have circulated that Trump's fallback plan (or even, perhaps, his primary goal all along) is to parlay his swell of campaign populism into a Trump media venture. Most speculation has centered on a Trump TV network that looks a lot like the live nightly broadcasts from Trump Tower that are now appearing on the campaign's Facebook page and could provide a blueprint for the future. "I think from very early on, Trump has seen this thing primarily as an opportunity for him to put himself at center stage. I don't think he's really cared about policy or actually even becoming President," says O'Brien, now executive editor at Bloomberg View. "I think of course he has to be interested in some sort of a media operation in the wake of this, whatever that entails: digital, broadcast, books, and print."

Could Trump harness his pitchman abilities and siphon off a piece of that revenue for himself by launching his own book publishing houyse? Regnery would seem like a perfect model for how to sell to Trump's far-right audience. They publish conservative red meat that often seeks to discredit Democrats and liberals, and has often drawn real political blood. John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi's 2004 book, Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, severely wounded the candidate's campaign by questioning his service in Vietnam and calling him "incompetent to serve as commander in chief." The book sold over 400,000 copies on Bookscan, nearly as many as the lauded 2008 election book,Game Change,by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. And Regnery has already published one Trump tome: 2011's Time to Get Tough.

Perhaps more likely would be for Trump to follow in the footsteps of former Fox News sensation Glenn Beck and his now-foundering The Blaze. In 2011, Beck's Mercury Arts partnered with Simon & Schuster to launch Mercury Ink, a publishing imprint that has released numerous bestsellers in fiction, non-fiction, and even Young Adult. Trump has already published books with Simon & Schuster and Random House, either of which could offer distribution and marketing infrastructure without the large financial commitment necessary to launch a house from scratch.

"He's not a reader—this by his own admission—so starting a publishing imprint seems a little far afield for him"

Paul Bogaards, executive director of Publicity at Knopf is skeptical that Trump could pull it off. "He's not a reader—this by his own admission—so starting a publishing imprint seems a little far afield for him," he said. "But stranger things have happened in America, as evidenced by the Republican nominee for President. He is surrounded by vindictive henchmen, many of whom might see an opportunity to combat our country's 'left media bias' through an imprint founded in his name."

Would Trump, whom O'Brien notes "has the attention span of a gnat", have the patience for the slow burn of book publishing? Trump doesn't exactly have a sterling business record when it comes to launching new products. "Given Trump's skills as an entrepreneur, I think we can predict that, should it come to pass, Trump Publishing will be fully as successful as Trump University, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump Mortgage, Trump Magazine, Trump Casinos, and the Trump Shuttle," says Neil Nyren, executive vice president and editor in chief of Putnam.

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